Big News. Stay Tuned.

March 6, 2018
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2.5 million

people have benefitted from the improved cookstoves

It seems that everyone in Uganda listens to the radio. Wherever you go—in restaurants, on the streets, in households, in the fields—radios play music, news, talk shows. People walk along the sidewalks playing the radio from their cell phones, stopping friends along the way to share the latest radio happenings. If you want to get information out to Ugandans, say it on the radio. So, this project recently launched a radio campaign in Uganda to further accelerate its success and to promote its improved cookstoves that reduce fuel consumption (saving money and saving forests) and reduce carbon emissions (saving the climate). In rural Uganda, 90% of the population cook on open fires that are inefficient, dirty, and dangerous, so spreading the good news about these stoves is important, to Ugandans and to the planet. As soon as the radio campaign started, Rehema noticed a definite increase in sales of the cookstoves at her hardware store. “I’ve been selling these cookstoves for over five years,” she said, and now they are flying off the shelves. Sumaya, who owns a small nearby restaurant, heard about the cookstoves on the radio and dropped in on Rehema to enquire if the stoves would help her business. She bought two and has reduced her fuel consumption by 50%. Business is thriving. A good idea, well communicated, can accomplish big things, and so far, over 510,000 improved cookstoves have been sold in Uganda, benefitting 2.5 million people, reducing charcoal consumption by over 700,000 tonnes, saving 11 million trees that would have been cut for that charcoal, and reducing carbon emissions into Earth’s atmosphere by four million tonnes. Stay tuned. Asked what they might themselves say over the radio, Rehema and Samaya smiled and immediately said, “Thank you! Thank you for your support!”
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